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The ‘local knowledge case’, related to issues of interest from your own perspective that has motivated you as a researcher to learn more about the enquiry (Thomas, 2011)80. In my case, a personal interest in the area of sustainability marketing has motivated my interests to know more about sustainability marketing curricula and the academic response to marketing. In so doing, my position as an academic within my institution, allowed me access to others who may have specific and rich knowledge regarding the research area.
The origin of a case study can be linked to what is called a ‘key case’. The assumption here was that the choice of a case is linked to something that has significant interest. Thomas (2011) suggests that hurricane Katrina may be considered a ‘key case’ by virtue of the size and extraordinary circumstances surrounding the event. Hence, if my research were to be considered a key case’, it would have to include an exemplary situation or area of interest.
In some respects, sustainability marketing advocates an agenda that focused on the broader aspects of sustaining the planet, people and economic systems in a socially critical context.
Hence, this study was deemed to originate from what can be considered a ‘key case’
If the research originated from an ‘outlier case”’ this would relate to something that is interesting because it is different from the norm (Thomas, 2011). Therefore, the possibility exists that this case study can find its original context in an ‘outlier case”’ because the research phenomenon, namely, sustainability-marketing curriculum challenged and disrupted the norm of an accepted marketing curriculum. The questioning of why the outlier is of significance can offer a possible analytical frame (Thomas, 2011). Hence, the Arnold and Fisher (1996) conceptual framework of the academic response to marketing and the historical development of marketing theory was utilised to develop the analytical frame presented in Chapter 481. Additionally, this analytical frame was applied metaphorically to television screens to depict changes in the theory of marketing in different eras. This would suggest that the research also originated from the context of an ‘outlier case’. Consequently, ‘the purpose of the case’ was another essential factor that rationalised the research choices made for this study.
80 The presence in your own localised context may allow you to gain access to deeper thoughts and knowledge about a phenomenon or that you may be restricted to being in your own context because you are required to pursue a research study, (Thomas, 2011).
81 The discussion of this analytical framework is presented in greater detail in chapter 4. The contexts and explanations of the organising device is presented in this chapter.
62 3.11.2 The purpose of the case
Thomas (2011) suggested that cases could be chosen for the purposes they are intended to meet.
Hence, he outlined that cases can be intrinsic, instrumental, evaluative, explanatory and exploratory. Intrinsic cases are usually undertaken because they illustrated a particular trait, characteristic or problem (Berg, 2004). The motivation for an intrinsic study would be based purely on a research issue being interesting. Instrumental case studies concentrated on a case being used as a research tool to understand a phenomenon better. Evaluative case studies are focused on the performative aspects of how something has worked. For example, it could involve an evaluation of student consumption behaviour after being exposed to critical marketing theory in their honours programme. Explanatory case studies are most often used by researchers as the multifaceted nature of the case allows for explanations to be offered within a specific context (Thomas, 2011). The idea is to look into a case in-depth to see what may be considered different or ‘paradoxical.’ Exploratory case studies often emerge from situations that are unique and require further probing in order to gain deeper understanding.
Given the multiple perspectives that are relevant to this research study, the purpose of this case can be considered to be a combination of instrumental (understanding how sustainability marketing discourses are relevant to the marketing curriculum), explanatory (what are the factors that influence the adoption of sustainability discourses?) and exploratory (how sustainability discourse are antithetical to the consumption ideology in marketing?). Therefore, the case study approach selected was based on choosing from various criteria. These criteria related to whether or not a theory was being tested or built, whether or not a phenomenon needed to be illustrated, whether or not an interpretative ethnographic immersion into data was needed or whether or not an idea needed to be tested in a controlled experimental setting (Thomas, 2011). The case approach taken here was to consider the case study in relation to theory building and to some extent theory testing. Testing theory is the assumption that there is already some sort of explanatory framework available for the phenomenon or situation (theory).
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The final consideration of how the case was going to be conducted hinged on whether a single or multiple cases would be considered. According to Thomas (2011), there are three approaches to single cases, which include, retrospective cases (collecting data from the past such as documents and photographs); snap shot cases (a case is looked at within a single and specified period of time due to some boundary such as limited access to a participant) and diachronic cases (studies that show changes over time). He also asserted that there are multiple or collective or comparative (cross-case analysis) approaches to case studies which include nested case studies; parallel and sequential studies. The decision was made to conduct multiple case studies as it would allow for divergent opinions to emerge.
Multiple case approaches that have instrumental purposes, place the research focus on the phenomenon (Berg, 2004). Although nested cases include the use of multiple cases, they are different to multiple cases because the focus of multiple cases is comparative in order to feature a theoretical idea (Thomas, 2011). However, the same author suggested that nested cases are multiple cases but the focus here is within the actual cases and how it contrasts in relation to the wider case and not to just the individual case. Parallel cases occur within the same time and sequential cases occur directly after each other with each case before it influencing the next (Thomas, 2011)82.
For this research, the nested approach was taken as it involved a multiple case study approach, where each perspective of the participant was not only subjected to comparative enquiry, but also ‘nested’ within the wider implications of what these cases meant. This would be seen in the application of the television imagery to the conceptual and theoretical framework by Arnold and Fisher (1996) in the data analysis.
82 Collective case study where a number of cases are studied in order to investigate some general phenomenon (Silverman, 2013). Your goal is to expand and generalise theories (analytic generalisation).
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